Daresbury Laboratory
Daresbury Laboratory is a scientific research laboratory based at Sci-Tech Daresbury campus near Daresbury in Halton, Cheshire, England. The laboratory began operations in 1962 and was officially opened on 16 June 1967 as the Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory by the then Prime Minister of United Kingdom, Harold Wilson. It was the second national laboratory established by the British National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science, following the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory. It is operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, part of UK Research and Innovation. As of 2018, it employed around 300 staff. Paul Vernon was appointed as director in November 2020, taking over from Professor Susan Smith who had been director from 2012.
Description
Daresbury Laboratory carries out research in fields such as accelerator science, bio-medicine, physics, chemistry, materials, engineering and computational science. Its facilities are used by scientists and engineers, from both the university research community and industrial research base. The laboratory is based at Sci-Tech Daresbury.Facilities and research
- Accelerator science, including the Cockcroft Institute which houses scientists from STFC, University of Manchester, University of Liverpool, University of Lancaster, and University of Strathclyde. Accelerator science facilities include:
- * VELA, an electron compact linear accelerator, based around an RF photocathode gun.
- * CLARA, an electron linear accelerator to be used for research in free-electron lasers.
- * FEBE, a beamline of CLARA designed for 2 GeV electron research.
- SuperSTEM, a national research facility for advanced electron microscopy. The facility belongs to EPSRC.
- The Hartree Centre, a high performance computing, data analytics and AI research facility.
- Scientific computing
- Nuclear physics
- Detector systems
- Superconducting Radio-Frequency Lab
- Engineering Technology Centre
- Public engagement
- The University of Liverpool Virtual Engineering Centre
- PsiQuantum
Retired facilities
- NINA, an electron synchrotron; the first accelerator at the site.
- ALICE, an electron accelerator previously known as ERLP.EMMA, a linear non-scaling FFAG accelerator.NSF, a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator housed in the tower.HPCx, a supercomputer.
- '''Synchrotron Radiation Source'''